All posts tagged ‘Father Christmas’

It would be no huge stretch of the imagination to say that on January 6th, when the Christmas decorations come down, I begin my countdown to the next holiday season, when I can once again open up my enormous box of Christmas movies.

Give me cheese, give me corn, give me Macauley Culkin, but I love a good (and a bad) Christmas movie. It’s an obsession I inherited without shame from my dad, and which I am excited to build upon each year. Last year’s top addition was Disney’s Prep & Landing, this year it is Aardman Animations (in collaboration with Sony Pictures Imageworks and Sony Pictures Animation) Arthur Christmas. Coming from the people who gave Wallace and Gromit to the world, I didn’t expect a run of the mill Christmas movie, I expected instant classic. I was not disappointed.

Aside from the credentials of the production company, the cast list was instantly promising. James McAvoy (X-Men: First Class) and Hugh Laurie (Stuart Little) to play the Claus brothers, Bill Nighy (The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) as Grand Santa, with Jim Broadbent (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 and on as Horace Slughorn) and Imelda Staunton (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and on as Dolores Umbridge) as Mr and Mrs Claus.